Page 4 - Millenial Finomics Issue 1
P. 4
Economics
The Crushing Effect of
COVID-19 on Egypt’s
Tourism Industry
- Hana Abdulla
entrepreneurial in- times the loss of the
The emergence novation. Howev- Global Economic
of globalization has er, with the sudden Crisis in 2009. This
proven to be a fun- emergence and rapid drastic fall has un-
damental aspect of outbreak of COV- doubtedly had a se-
the internationaliza- ID-19, many global vere impact on mil-
tion of economies economic sectors lions of businesses In fact, in 2018 the industry 15.38% increase. Unfortunately
in the 21st century, face devastating re- and a plethora of generated 11.9% of the national this depicts a false fantasy for
heavily influencing percussions. Indeed, jobs in the tourism GDP, amounting to EGP 528.7 the Egyptian tourism sector.
the international the UNWTO reports industry. billion. It also represents 9.7%
tourism industry’s that global respons- of total employment in the Egypt had just begun to see a
recent rapid growth. es to the pandem- Tourism is consid- Egyptian labor force. The World positive incline in its tourism
For many countries, ic between January ered to be a corner- Travel and Tourism Council rates following the political tur-
this sector acts as through June trans- stone for the growth reports that Egypt’s tourism moil in 2011, 2013, and terrorist
a significant factor lates to a loss of 440 of the Egyptian sector is the fastest-growing in attacks in 2015, however, it is
in the country’s so- million internation- economy, classed North Africa, with a growth rate now yet again facing more re-
cio-economic devel- al tourists and over as the third source of 16.5%, quadrupling the inter- percussions of a global and na-
opment, contributing USD 400 million lost of Egypt’s national national average rate (3.9 percent). tional crisis. Data compiled by
to its GDP through in international ex- income, after remit- In 2019 numbers showed that the UNWTO shows that Egypt
foreign investments, port revenue. This tances of Egyptian 13.6 million people had visited has experienced a 58.6% decline
exports, employ- has been estimated expatriates and non- Egypt and numbers in 2020 were in the number of tourists up to
ment, and enabling to be more than five oil exports. expected to exceed 15 million - a this point, and a decrease of
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